Total fertility rate number of children a woman will

total fertility rate: number of children a woman will have in her lifetime.

Copyright © 2007 The Ontario Educational Communications Authority. All rights reserved.
Canadian and World Issues CGW4U-A Lesson 2, page 3
World Population: The Numbers
Within the next hour, there will be 8480 more people on this
planet. That means an additional 67 840 people over an eight-
hour shift of work or a good night’s sleep (see Figure 2.1).
Time unit Births Deaths Natural increase
Year 130 860 569 56 579 396 74 281 173
Month 10 905 047 4 714 950 6 190 098
Day 358 522 155 012 203 510
Hour 14 938 6 459 8 480
Minute 249 108 141
Second 4.1 1.8 2.4
Note : Figures may not add to totals due to rounding
Figure 2.1. World vital events per time unit, 2006.
Source : U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base.
Every second of 2006, there will be 4.1 births in the world. (Try
saying ”four-point-one” every second for 10 seconds. Although you
may stop counting, this growth never stops.) There are 1.8 deaths
every second as well. So the population of the world is growing
at the rate of 2.4 per second. This growth is known as natural
increase. In 2006 alone, the population of almost two Canadas
will be added to the world. Since the rate of natural increase
itself increases as the total gets bigger, more and more people are
added to the world every year, and available space and resources
cannot accommodate this growth. The amount of water on this
planet today is finite. If there are millions more thirsts to quench
each year, there could be serious problems in the future. The
capacity to grow more foods may increase through developments
in agricultural science, but the additional food lands we need will
not have the best soils, as these lands are already overused. Yet
the people still come and the population still grows.

Lesson 2, page 4 Canadian and World Issues CGW4U-A
Copyright © 2007 The Ontario Educational Communications Authority. All rights reserved.
The chart in Figure 2.2 shows the world’s total population for
the thousand years from 1000 to 2000, and the chart in Figure
2.3 shows the UN prediction of world population figures for the
years 2005 to 2050. Note that there are two different predictions
on world population growth. The “High Growth” set of numbers
assumes that high population growth will continue. The “Low
Growth” set of numbers assumes lower growth as people
throughout the world have smaller families and there are more
diseases such as AIDS.
Year Population (billions) Year Population (billions)
1000 0.30 1970 3.70
1250 0.31 1980 4.44
1500 0.50 1990 5.27
1750 0.79 2000 6.06
1800 0.98
1850 1.26
1900 1.65
1950 2.52
1960 3.02
Figure 2.2. World population increase between 1000−2000.
Source : United Nations Population Division, Department of Economic & Social Affairs, “World Population to 2300,”
Year High growth (in billions) Low growth (in billions)
2005 6.5 6.4
2010 7.0 6.7
2015 7.4 6.9
2020 7.9 7.2
2025 8.4 7.3
2030 8.8 7.5
2035 9.3 7.5
2040 9.7 7.5
2045 10.2 7.5
2050 10.6 7.4
Figure 2.3. United Nations high- and low-growth predictions.